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And ya know, everyone else that lives in urban areas. Kinda the definition of an urban area... there's a lot of people. In Boston we had long lines too, and it had nothing to do with the "urban working class"

the well-off, white collar types can afford to skip work or be late to the office to stand in line. Those in the middle to lower classes are more likely to work shift work or two jobs, and can't afford to stand in line all day.

Unfortunately I don't think companies are required to pay you when you're off voting, but they are required to give you time to go vote. Those who claim they were fired due to the long wait for voting should be able to successfully sue their former employer.

You're right (+1). I frequently notice that error when others make it. I have no excuse for myself other than my brain isn't working so well this week. Example: Today I said "seat" when I meant to say "sheet."

This is an arbitrary stylistic rule that popped into being in the 1700s. English speakers have been using less with discrete units since at least the days of Alfred the Great. (Here's the MWDEU itself.) There's nothing wrong with having stylistic preferences, but less than 4000 votes is completely normal, grammatical English.

Of course language changes. However, less has been used with countable things for over a thousand years, and there's no sign that this is actually changing. Despite a couple hundred years of editors and usage guides trying to impose this rule, English speakers still use both less and fewer for discrete things in more or less free variation.

I'm saying people have used less in essentially the same way for a thousand years. You want to change English so that some of those perfectly normal uses become "mistakes". That's fine. Some people want to get rid of split infinitives. Others would like to add a new gender-neutral pronoun like hir or thon to the language. Just remember, you're swimming against the tide. Good luck in your campaign.

I think you and shub are arguing whether grammar should be descriptive or prescriptive. Personally, I lean towards taking a descriptive approach, though no view can be fully descriptive or prescriptive. But I think you are correct. Since so many people are comfortable saying "less than 4,000 votes" and it sounds perfectly fine to so many ears, and doesn't violate a more fundamental principle than the rule itself, I think it should be acceptable.

I live in downtown Kansas City, Missouri and I had to wait almost two hours. Luckily my English professor didn't really care that I was late. But I don't see why they don't put more polling places in more densely populated areas. (Enter conspiracy theory here)

When I lived in the suburbs I never had to wait longer than 15 minutes.

I live off of the plaza. My polling place made the news. People there at 6am waited for 3.5-4 hours. All because they screwed up the voter lists and had to go reprint them. Without the mistake there would have been a very little wait. The population density was not the problem.

Wednesday (11/19), the AP called Missouri for McCain by a margain of 3632 votes. Yesterday, this report was released regarding wait times at polls in St. Louis County, especially North St. Louis County, which overwhelmingly supported Obama. Voters in Velda City experienced wait times of 8 hours!

EDIT: I live in St. Louis, and have a friend with a brother in the police force. It and the fire dept. are both INTENSELY racist, on both sides. It's pretty bad, and not representative of the whole of St. Louis.

St. Louis is probably more racist than the national average, but talking dropping the n-bomb and shooting people (who aren't robbing you) is definitely not the norm.

St. Louis is, after all, the city in which Obama drew a record crowd. That's a US record.

I don't really understand this line thing. I have never had to wait to vote. I go to my polling location, sign in, get walked to a booth and maybe had to wait for the person inside to finish. Then I vote. 10 minutes tops.

This is in central NJ. What creates these horror story wait times to get into a voting booth?

I live in an area surrounded by farms and new developments, there are two fire stations within 5 miles of my house and there was no long wait at all. The workers there said they had never seen such a large turnout or number of young voters which was so great to hear.

Sure am, but in my city we distribute voting machines based on the population in the Ward and District the polling location is for.

So can you explain what is actually happening to cause long lines? From reaching the front of the line (if there is any) here it takes no more than 5 minutes to sign in and cast a ballot. What is taking long in these places? Are they not distributing voting machines based on population? There has to be some reason other than "They're black."

Do you have any facts to support that, or are you just jumping on the race-baiting bandwagon as it passes?

You know the states themselves are responsible for getting any federal funding they need (and since the Help America Vote Act, there's a lot more money) for voting machines, staff, etc. If particular areas don't have the equipment they need, there are some elected officials who aren't doing their job.

Wow, you're lame. Too bad I wasted my time trying to help you see more clearly. Obviously you need simple dichotomies like race and political parties in order to wrap your little brain around the world we live in.
Enjoy.

Oh quit playing the race card. I suppose you're going to try and tell me polling places that are primarily black districts don't give out free snacks and drinks to voters either. The Obama pens and the McCain bobble head dolls in the swag bags were kind of cool this year.

Poor logistics is still a huge problem. And, I can tell you from living in St. Louis, that "poor logistics" is responsible for lines like this and issues in polling places in North city and county every election.

I didn't submit this article because I thought it was election fraud. I submitted it because I think Obama probably would have won Missouri if people hadn't needed to leave the polls because of work or children as this article describes.

How come these 'poor logistics' & 'long lines' seem to mainly pop up in areas where the populations are generally poor & black? I live in St Louis & I promise you there were no problems like this in West County (white upper-middle class - republican).

I live in St. Louis city (not the county) and I waited about 30 seconds to vote.

So let me get this straight. Polling places are open about 12 hours, and these people are claiming they waited 8 hours to vote. I'm sorry but that doesn't add up. Just consider the logistics of that statement. Unless they left and came back, then they could've waited 8 hours I suppose.

I think I heard on the news that night that Velda City had only 3 voting booths. They were not prepared for voters. People were still in line at Velda for several hours after the polls closed (they had to allow anyone in line at 7pm to vote).

This is unbelievable...he won! If the Republicans stole the election....he would have fucking lost...what is wrong with people. This is unbelievable. The Republicans cheated in every state that Obama lost! I love it. This is really getting out of control. Its like being in a Beer Hall in Munich circa 1930...craziness.

So not to rain on anyones parade here because "conspiracy conspiracy", but the Secretary of State is a democrat. Now maybe in some sort of double bluff she tried to blow it for the dems but I find this unlikely.

I voted in St. Louis county and it took a total of less than 5 minutes. Half of these retards created the wait on their own. Instead of going to lunch at noon, try 11 or 1, it's typically much less of a wait. Sure, this disproportionately affected the Obama voters in the heavily populated northern municpalities of North St. Louis, because half of those people have never voted before! My point is this, half of the polling places were not staffed properly, because they've never had such a turn out. Not to mention, if you get to a polling place two hours before it opens, I don't want to hear you complaining about your wait. Bottom line, Obama won, quit your bitching minions, get back to work.

Yeah - I went to great lengths to blame them. STFU with your nonsense already, I merely pointed out the reasons why they had problems, and that it was hardly due to election fraud as the headline implies.

My headline isn't about election fraud. I believe Obama would have won Missouri if the election board had done better planning and training. (They always have lines like this in North County and the election board should have known to expect longer lines this year when there was some excitement about the candidate)

No, what he is implying is that there was not enough vote machines available for the amount of voters in the city. HAVA requires a machine for every x number of registered voters to prevent lines. Why should people living in a city be penalized for it?